It was a pretty boring week here at the MTC. We had a cool speaker on Tuesday, Sister Burton, the General Relief Society President, and her Husband who's about to be the President of BYU Hawaii. The Husband was really cool. He made an analogy where the mantle of a mission is like a suit coat that's to big for you. Then you grow into it during your mission. Then after the mission is over, the suit coat comes off, but you are a better/bigger man because of it. I hope that made sense, but it was really cool in the meeting because he had a small missionary up to put his coat on haha.
She was a good speaker, too, but she asked people's feelings on some topics and she says to have like 2 or 3 people to come up to the microphones and like 8 people go up and give their life stories. One guy I noticed went up 5 times and told these really long stories. So she had to cut some stuff out, but it was still a pretty good talk.
Our zone traditionally has 2 districts. 1 that's been here for awhile and a newer one and at the beginning of this week the district above us left to the field, which is pretty sad, but then yesterday we got 6 new elders. They came along with a rumored 600 new missionaries yesterday. 3 are from AZ. Elder Burris went to Mtn View and just graduated. Then there's Elder Smith from Glendale and Elder Johnson from Ahwatukee. He went to Westview. I think they're all going to the El Salvador west/Bolivia mission (pretty cool 2 countries). Then we have 3 more Elders going to Florida Elder Walton, Williams, and [Utah]Smith. Yep 2 Smiths pretty random. We're gonna try to call them by their states.
You're probably wondering why I'm writing so late. The reason is actually pretty cool. We always plan our P-Days perfectly, so we don't waste any time in the morning, so we have as much free time as possible, but today we had to go to an audition. I mentioned in an earlier email that my companion, Elder Porter, is really musically talented, but that was being modest. He's actually crazy talented... savantesque. He has a background in DJing, music producing, musicals, playing the piano, and singing with a super impressive tenor voice haha. So ever since the day I found out how good he was, I've been nudging him to audition for one of the big Sunday devotional special musical numbers. I wasn't very pushy because he's a little shy/timid sometimes, but he finally decided he would do it this week. So after laundry today, we (Me, Canlass, Jenks, and Porter) got dressed up all fancy 2 hours early (we usually stay in casual clothes till 12) and went to this audition.
He plays and sings the most gentle/emotional version of Called to Serve you could imagine. So one of the rules to musical numbers is that you CANNOT accompany yourself. But we didn't know that until we got there and all the wives of the MTC Presidency told us pretty straight up that he wouldn't be allowed to play and sing, but they would let him audition still playing for himself. We had to wait a few minutes for one of the Sisters to go to the bathroom or something, so while we were sitting there we kinda talked him up and we got that sort-of eye roll "yeah I'm sure". Then he started playing and they literally almost started to cry. It was so satisfying haha. During the song the MTC 1st president poked his head in and was engrossed. After, the Wives were so excited and said that they're going to try to let him do its by himself, but if they can't, they're going to get him the best accompanist they can so that he can teach them the song (he wrote the accompaniment in his head). It was pretty awesome to see because they were like "we have to make this happen" and "we've never done this before but...". So yeah, that's my companion, Elder Porter. He might be the first ever missionary to play the piano and sing as a MTC Special Musical number.
Not a lot of updates on me. I'm feeling a lot better but I still have this nagging cough that I heard sticks around for like 15-18 days which means I have another 2 or 3 days left. I finished all the pills, but by the time those were gone I was feeling better, so I don't need anymore. Thanks so much. I'm gonna try to send a couple pics but it's sketchy sometimes.
Con Amor,
Elder McBride
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